


Somebody (Else) is Cheating, Brother

by thatsrightdollface



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Brothers, Fluff, Gen, Nostalgia, Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017), card game, the Hulk and Loki still have an uneasy relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2019-03-20 19:32:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13724487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsrightdollface/pseuds/thatsrightdollface
Summary: Thor catches Loki trying to win some of his stuff back during an alien card game.





	Somebody (Else) is Cheating, Brother

When it was all over, and they were both back to looking princely... When Thor was ready to keep shepherding the last of the Asgardians across unfriendly space, too, let’s not forget that... He would will himself to remember the raw relief on Loki’s face when he’d rounded that corner and tripped right over his brother’s awkward card game.  

Loki hadn’t looked that excited to see Thor since they’d been kids and he’d turned up at just the perfect moment to get a bit of petty mischief pinned on him, or else roped into some kind of playful scheme or another. When they’d looted the apothecary’s and accidentally melted half the palace into golden pudding – maybe  _that_  was the last time Loki had looked at Thor with such honest, eager hope. 

_“Come on, now, brother. It’ll be fun, and I swear we’ll live to say we’ve done it.”_   That sort of face, you know, with his venomous green eyes gone soft and his smile looking like such a happy accident.  _“You know Father will be kinder if he thinks it was your idea, too.”_

Now – on the ship, with the cards – so much was different, but it sort of stung deep in Thor’s chest to see how much could still be the same, if they’d let it.  Loki pulled on his “honestly relieved” face without even meaning to, he thought; of course, he was _also_ missing his boots, his coat, and most of his rings.  The little group was all hunched over in a hallway and playing some sort of alien rock-person game Thor had never learned.  It looked like Loki was losing pretty badly. Most of his stuff had been piled up in the pot at the middle of the circle, and Thor couldn’t stop himself from kind of snorting a little laugh at that. 

“Ah!  Brother!  Father’s ravens, I was  _this close_  to sending for you.”

“Not like you to lose so much of our family’s jewelry, Loki.”

Loki’s smile drained as quickly as it had formed – some kind of expensive liquor poured down the Midgardian tap, Thor would think later.  Wasted.  Loki wrinkled up his nose a bit, too.  Maybe he was remembering all the reasons he had not to reach out to his brother, anymore.  “Yes, I suppose it isn’t.”

The colorful, plastic-y alien cards looked very small in the Hulk’s hands when he leaned down to chortle over them. The scrapper/returned Valkyrie Thor had picked up on Sakaar butted her shoulder all fondly up against his, wearing the kind of smirk Thor wondered if he could ever coax out of her, himself. 

“When the big guy caught  _Prince_  Loki cheating, he scared him into... _Compromising_ the next few rounds,” she laughed. “It was really something. You might notice that new dent in the wall?”

“Ah,” said Thor.  Their ship’s metallic hallway did have a nice new smash worked into it, though nothing raging enough to burst through into the room beyond.  He met the Hulk’s eye for one long second. 

“Wasn’t gonna hurt him,” the Hulk scoffed, and Thor glanced away, satisfied. 

“I wasn’t even planning to get involved in this game.  _And_  I wasn’t cheating,” Loki said, but Thor could tell he didn’t honestly expect anyone to believe him.  He scooted over a little so Thor could squeeze in next to him if he wanted, though, and added through his teeth, “But now someone else - not me! -  _is_ , and I need you to keep an eye while I win back my damn boots.” 

“Your brother’s being paranoid,” the Valkyrie drawled.  She was slurring her words only a little, then.  “Are we sure he doesn’t just hate losing?”  

But Thor decided wherever he’d been going could wait – he was about to take a tour of their new ship’s engine room was how he’d remember it, later – and sat down next to his brother so their shoulders brushed.  Loki’s skin was always so cold, and his glances were always so guarded...  He tossed Thor a thin smile and started explaining the rules of the game in a conspiratorial murmur. 

That was just a little like older, easier days, too.  How many times had Loki gotten Thor up to speed in that very voice, sometimes right after Thor had been out drinking and making a fool of himself so his breath still stunk of old mead and his hair was all dull and tangled?  _“So that’s the ambassador from Svartalfheim there, and I’ve been trying to distract her, Thor, but you’re just so late to brunch…  I’ve had to improvise, I’m afraid.” _

Loki passed a brooch, smoldering with patient, waiting magic, into the pile and an alien chuckled something in a language nobody’d ever heard on Asgard.  Maybe it was good Thor didn’t expect his brother knew what it meant. 

The idea that Loki thought Thor would call out someone cheating against him – the idea that he knew he would be willing to do a little team-up and probably resist rubbing his face in it – was worth learning some more needlessly complicated card game rules.  

“I can’t promise we’ll actually get your boots back,” Thor offered. It was as much of a  _But I’m going to try, brother, you know that_ , as he thought Loki’d expect to get out of him at that point in their lives. After so many betrayals, lashing out from a ruinous, troubled mind Thor suspected the both of them only vaguely understood…  After all Loki probably thought Thor would still demand he answer for. 

(After all Thor probably  _should_  demand he answer for, actually, except that Loki could be the god of so many things beyond trickery.  Not losing what he was, but becoming more...  Except that Loki was his brother, too.  Seeing him chew his lip, appraising the situation as part of his own team, made Thor feel like maybe he could be connected to a family again.  It wasn’t very long ago that he’d watched his father drift into golden flecks and go off far, far beyond the both of them, after all.) 

Loki hesitated. “You don’t have to promise  _that_ ,” he’d said. 

Thor would wonder what else Loki might want him to promise, later.  When it was all over, again, and they were both back to looking princely - all of that, you know.  The inflection had probably been a slip of the tongue, honestly, but Thor figured a person might be able to learn more about the God of Mischief through his mistakes than anything he made a big show of doing.  Loki had most of his magical baubles again, by that point, and a borrowed pair of boots he’d shrunken down from Thor’s size to his own.  (And he’d dyed them black-ish and dark green, because of course he would.)

“Well, that was a bust,” Loki grumbled.  He’d said the new boots stank like the floor of a shitty Midgardian bar, but Thor knew that was very inaccurate from personal experience. 

“Mm,” Thor agreed. 

He was still trying to think of something else clever to add - he’d never get tired of seeing the surprised look Loki got when he said something clever - when his brother shrugged and cleared his throat.  Loki said, “Eh. Better luck next time,” and swiveled on his toes and out of the room.  Just like that. 

“Next time,” Thor echoed.  Now that,  _that_  tasted something like a promise. Maybe the world wouldn’t start turning itself inside-out again, somehow, before they got to keep it. 


End file.
